


who picks you up when you are broken

by sailingthenightsea



Series: this is destiny [5]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Post-Season/Series 01, also you should read the rest of this series, and the rest is geralt and ciri fluff, bc somethings aren't gonna make a lot of sense, ciri and geralt centric, half of this is jaskier and geralt bff fluff, specifically jaskier, the answer to the title question is your best friend, which if you've read the rest of this series you should be used to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:22:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22520947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sailingthenightsea/pseuds/sailingthenightsea
Summary: Cintra falls and Jaskier only hears about it two days later in a tavern in the middle of Aedirn. No survivors, they’d said, and Jaskier’s knees had buckled as his stomach bottomed out.He shut his eyes against flashes of some faceless girl lying bloody and broken in the wreckage of the banquet hall. Of Geralt, holding her head in his lap surrounded by carnage. Or of him torn open and stained with his own blood as well.“I need to go,” he’d said. “There are people… My friend—I have to find him.”
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg (implied)
Series: this is destiny [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1594753
Comments: 31
Kudos: 324





	who picks you up when you are broken

**Author's Note:**

> part five!!
> 
> sorry for the wait y'all i got busy and then distracted with some other works i have going, but it's here! enjoy :)

Cintra falls.

Cintra falls and Jaskier only hears about it two days later in a tavern in the middle of Aedirn. No survivors, they’d said, and Jaskier’s knees had buckled as his stomach bottomed out. The barkeep and a woman came to his aid immediately.

“Oh, love, did you have family in Cintra?” the woman asked gently.

“Of a sort,” he’d said weakly. “No one made it out?”

The two exchanged knowing looks that they thought he couldn’t see and the pit in his gut turned to a stone.

“I heard of a few survivors making camp a few days north,” the barkeep offered.

The woman nodded, looked back at Jaskier. “Maybe they got out,” she says. When he didn’t respond, she’d told the barkeep to get him a drink, but he’d shrugged her off.

“I need to go,” he’d said. “There are people… My friend—I have to find him.” Find Geralt and tell him… If he’s even alive. If he wasn’t there trying to save her.

He shut his eyes against flashes of some faceless girl lying bloody and broken in the wreckage of the banquet hall. Of Geralt, holding her head in his lap surrounded by carnage. Or of him torn open and stained with his own blood as well.

Geralt was alive. He had to be. And if he didn’t know…

Gods, what do you say to someone who may have just lost the child they didn’t know they needed?

It didn’t matter, he’d decided, the words were inconsequential. He knows him better than Geralt would be willing to admit, and, one way or another, Geralt needs a friend. Whether he realizes it or not.

Which is why Jaskier has been moving from town to town, tracking news of the witcher, for nearly four weeks. It’s hardly the first time he’s spent days following Geralt’s trail, but he’s rarely been so dogged in his pursuit.

At the first mention of a young girl traveling with him, Jaskier gets more desperate, but in a different way. If Geralt found her, then Jaskier is as sure as hell going to be there. No way he’s going to let that man raise a child on his own. Both for Geralt’s sake and the girl’s.

The last thing he’d heard had only confirmed that Geralt had _probably_ been there the night prior unless there was another “strange man with white hair and yellow eyes traveling with a young girl”. And that, given that man was Geralt, he had left before dawn. Like he reportedly had in nearly every town Jaskier had tracked him to. Meaning the only lead he had on Geralt’s next stop was that the next town reportedly had a bit of a pest problem.

Gods, if Geralt had suddenly stopped trying to solve everyone else’s problems, Jaskier had no hope of ever catching up.

He makes it to the next town by midday to find a lively market in the center of town. He very nearly turns around because this is _not_ Geralt’s kind of place. But then again the crowd would offer rather good cover. A man and a child would blend in here in ways they might not elsewhere.

In the end, he stays if only for the cart of freshly baked pastries and the very attractive woman selling them. The pastry was good, but, unfortunately, the vendor was less than interested. And married.

He’s just finished the pastry when he turns into an alley off the main road and nearly runs directly into—

Oh.

_Oh._

“You _are_ alive,” he says, stunned.

The girl’s eyes snap to his and her whole body goes rigid. Fear written in every hard line. She looks like she’s ready to take off running, and he doesn’t doubt that’s the case. So he keeps talking.

“I’d heard Geralt had a girl with him, but I– I wasn’t sure.” He blows out a breath, and his voice softens to something like wonder. “You look so much like your mother.”

And that’s what makes the tension ease—not Geralt’s name, but the mention of her mother. She still looks half ready to bolt, but it’s only half. He takes that as a win.

“How did you know my mother?” And mildly concerning that she revealed her identity so quickly, but it works in his favor, so he’ll worry about that later.

“I was there. At her betrothal feast. I’m the one who dragged Geralt along.” He leans in, not too much to scare her, but enough to faux whisper, “I’m his very best friend.”

She snorts. “Geralt doesn’t _have_ friends,” she says matter-of-factly.

“Geralt likes to _think_ he doesn’t have friends,” he corrects. “But he does. I’m one. Possibly the only one, but I think he and Mousesack were once friends.”

The start of a smile falls off her face. “Mousesack’s dead. He died protecting me.”

“I’m sorry,” Jaskier says. “But not that you survived. He died for a good cause.”

She scuffs the ground with the toe of her shoe, refusing to meet his eyes. “So many people seem to believe that, but I’m not so sure they’re right. What makes me so important?”

And Jaskier hurts for this girl who’s lost so much. “It’s not about that,” he says gently. “They love you. That’s more than enough cause.”

Her expression darkens and she opens her mouth to say something, but her body language suddenly shifts completely. Her face twists into a wince, followed by a touch of guilt, and then she’s pushing past Jaskier to the end of the alley. “Sorry! Sorry,” she says to someone Jaskier can’t see. “I’m alright. I’m fine. I just needed a breath and then…” and she trails off, gesturing vaguely at Jaskier, and that’s when she steps to the side and Geralt rounds the corner.

Surprise melts the sharp look on his face and his shoulders drop from the defensive place they’d taken up by his ears. “Jaskier,” he grunts in that way that sounds like everything else Geralt says but Jaskier knows holds fondness.

There’s also guilt and regret buried under all of his stoicism, but Jaskier just grins and it says _I forgave you already I’ll always forgive you I know you I understand_. And he can see that Geralt hears it. “I’ve been looking for you for _weeks_ , do you know? You are not an easy man to find.”

A fraction of a smile. Ha. “That’s the _point_.”

Jaskier scoffs. “If you didn’t want me to find you, you’d dye your hair a normal color.”

Offense takes over his face, but his voice is still amused. “My hair _is_ normal. For a witcher.”

“Or an old maid,” the girl adds, very helpfully. At Geralt’s betrayed look, she flashes an innocent smile.

“Also,” Jaskier continues, “I don’t believe I’ve heard of any other white haired witchers. In fact, don’t people call you that because you’re the only one?”

The girl giggles and Geralt glares at him, but it’s less the I’m-going-to-disembowel-you glare and more of the I-actually-enjoy-your-company-but-am-too-big-of-a-moody-prick-to-admit-it glare. “There are fewer than twenty witchers alive,” he says (dramatically). “There aren’t enough of us left for there to be anything common or uncommon.”

Jaskier opens his mouth for a very clever, very amusing reply when someone _else_ rounds the corner behind Geralt. The words die in his throat as his expression sours. Geralt, who clearly knows him well enough to recognize his distaste (and of course can smell her from much farther than five feet behind him), looks significantly more amused without even turning around.

“Why is _she_ here?” he asks, aiming and incredulous look at Geralt. “Did she not already break your heart well enough the last time we met?”

“ _Jaskier_ ,” Geralt warns, amusement gone.

Yennefer rolls her eyes. “To be clear,” she says airily, “ _he_ broke _my_ heart. By taking away my choice in Rinde.”

“What? Your choice to kill yourself with the bloody djinn? If I remember correctly, he raced back in there _against my very wise advice_ to rescue you.”

“Jaskier—”

“I didn’t _need_ his help—”

“Actually, I’m pretty sure you did—”

“Hey!” the girl snaps. “Stop it, both of you.”

Yennefer sighs, the tension dropping from her frame. “I’m not here for Geralt,” she tells him, and there’s something in her voice that sounds genuine, something he’s never heard in her before—at least not aimed at him. “I stayed for the girl.”

“I have a name, you know,” she snaps. Then realization hits and she spins to face Jaskier again. “Sorry, I don’t think I actually introduced myself. I’m Cirilla. Ciri. Of Cintra, but you already knew that bit.” She extends a hand, and he shakes it, amused.

“Well, Ciri, I think you and I are going to be excellent friends.” Geralt sighs.

-

Jaskier is in his room in the inn when Geralt finally shows up. He feels the brooding stare on the back of his head before anything else. He doesn’t turn around. “Are you just here to stand ominously in the doorway or did you need something?”

Geralt huffs in that way that’s almost a laugh but not really. Jaskier counts it, though. He turns to face him, eyebrow arched.

“I wanted to apologize,” he says, stilted and uncomfortable, like he always is when dreaded emotions come into play.

Yaskier softens, though, because he gets it. This kind of conversation has never come easily to him, and the fact that he’s initiating it _after_ Jaskier already made it known he wasn’t angry means that Geralt truly felt guilty.

He gives him a lopsided smile. “There was never any forgiveness to give, Geralt. You’re my friend.”

Geralt just studies him, like he’s still trying to puzzle out why Jaskier insists on being his friend. Why he tries so relentlessly.

He sighs then, apparently surrendering to the ordeal of being cared for without protest. “Why are you here, Jaskier? Why look for me now?”

A deep breath. “I heard that Cintra fell. That Nilfgard took the castle and there were no survivors save for a few scattered refugees. I thought—” he stops, shakes his head. “I didn’t know what happened, but I knew if you weren’t dead, you’d need a friend.”

Geralt’s face goes through a series of slight shifts representing an array of complicated emotions before he schools it back to his usual careful grumpy neutral. He does his grunt of acceptance and after another moment turns to leave.

He pauses at the door, though, to say a quiet “thank you” without actually looking at Jaskier. Then he goes.

Jaskier grins.

-

A few days and half as many towns later, Geralt finds Ciri (and his lungs because he couldn’t breathe for the solid two minutes it took to locate her) at a corner table in the tavern rather than where he left her in their room upstairs.

She’s rereading the book Geralt had gotten her a couple weeks ago. He isn’t sure how many times she’s read it by now, but it always makes him feel a little spark of pride when he sees how carefully she packs it into her bag, always wrapping one of her spare shirts around it.

Of course, none of that is his focus right now because his heart is still racing in his chest and he can’t quite shake off the panic that had dug in with its sharp claws when he’d come back and found the room empty.

“Jaskier said I could!” Ciri whines when they reach the top of the stairs. “It’s just downstairs and he’s been coming over to check on me the whole time and he’s between me and the door anyway, so he’d know if someone tried to grab me!”

Geralt aims an unimpressed look at her. “He was too busy flirting to notice me pass either time. Besides Jaskier’s not your—” but he swallows the rest of the sentence. He opens his mouth to continue, but she beats him to it.

“Not my what?” And of course she wouldn’t let it go, wouldn’t let him gloss over his misstep. He knows her well enough now that he shouldn’t expect anything to slip by. She listens to every unsaid word and she reads every shift of his expression.

He ignores the question because he doesn’t know how to answer it. “Jaskier’s not in charge,” he says instead and feels a little bit like a coward.

She watches him carefully, but doesn’t push. Just nods, apologizes (and he knows she doesn’t really mean it, but it’s only fair he lets it go after she didn’t drag an answer out of him), and leaves him standing there.

The door to their room shuts softly and he sighs. “Fuck.”

-

It’s later that night when they’re alone that she brings it up again. She waits until he finishes checking over his armor and cleaning his swords, until he’s standing empty handed between the between the bed and the door. Until there’s nothing trapping him.

“I never knew my father,” she says out of nowhere. “He died when I was a baby.” Her voice is casual, but he knows that tone. Knows she’s leading him somewhere, but only if he’s willing. He could run and she would let him.

He doesn’t. Not from her. “I know.”

She doesn’t meet his eyes, picking at a loose string on the quilt instead. “So if someone—if Jaskier,” she flicks her eyes up to his then drops them again, “ _were_ to call himself my father, I wouldn’t mind.” She risks another glance at him before continuing quickly. “I mean, I would still call him by his name. I wouldn’t– It would be weird… not to.” She pulls a face and he would laugh if his lungs would work right. Smile if he could feel anything but the lump in his throat and pit in his stomach. “I just… I would be okay with that. With being his daughter.” This time when she meets his eyes, she doesn’t look away. “If that were something he would want, of course.”

And all Geralt can bring himself to do is nod once, jerkily.

She looks him over before her shoulders drop and she says softly, “Right.” Her expression shutters and she turns to get ready for bed and a different kind of panic surges up his throat.

“I think he would,” he says too loud and too fast.

She spins to face him and her eyebrows furrow. “What?”

“Want that,” he clarifies. “I think he would.”

There’s a moment, a beat of silence. And then she smiles at him just a little at the corners of her mouth, but it’s enough to make his chest feel warm and overfull. There’s fear too, of course, but he’s getting better at working through it. For her. And for himself.

“Okay,” she says. “Good.”

After another beat, she turns back around and he watches as she distractedly starts three different tasks before he says, “Cirilla.”

And she goes. He wraps his arms around her and she buries her smile in his chest. _This is where I belong._

“I love you,” he says into her hair. Because he does and she deserves to hear it.

“I love you too.”

For a moment, they stay there, together, just breathing.

It scares him, a little, how much he loves her. How quickly and effortlessly she became a part of his life. How far he would go to protect her, to keep her. What he would become if he lost her.

 _Then don’t lose me_ , she had said. And he clung to it.

Her voice brings him back to the present. “Geralt,” she says sweetly, “you smell awful.” He scoffs and releases her as she laughs. “When’s the last time you bathed? I can’t keep hugging you if you smell worse than Roach.”

He shoves lightly at her shoulder and chuckles at her ridiculous grin.

 _Gods_ , he thinks even as he teases her back, _I would raze the continent for her. I would tear every star from the sky._

 _Then don’t lose me_ , she had said.

And he thought, _There is no line I would not gladly cross to protect you. There is nothing in this world that could take you._

 _Then don’t lose me,_ she had said. _I won’t._

**Author's Note:**

> as always, thank you so so much for reading! drop a comment or just a <3 to let me know what you thought!! also if anyone has any notes or suggestions about the characters or the plot (what little there is of one), feel free to let me know. i'm always looking for ways to improve and jaskier and yen are both pretty new to me!
> 
> hmu on my [personal tumblr](https://sailingthenightsea.tumblr.com) OR my brand new [witcher sideblog](https://geraltxrivia.tumblr.com) :)


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